Monday, August 2^nd, 1937

   An alarming day, though one that started quietly enough. All four of us headed off after breakfast to shop for supplies for the next leg of our trip, and the morning was spent happily enough in marine and air chandlers getting Atlantic charts and minor supplies for the Storm Bird. Helen is grateful it is not like one of the Schneider Trophy entries that raced this year using the Lorraine high-pressure “Radium” engine which by all accounts “cracked spark plugs like popcorn”. Our aircraft has so many of them to care for, after all. Going with multi-engined designs has its benefits but one pays the price in maintenance – though when half way across an ocean we will not be begrudging the time spent on keeping the engines running smoothly.

    We were heading across a small park near the North End burying grounds carrying a bagged luncheon apiece, when two large canines in well-cut, conservative suits came walking towards us, talking earnestly to each other and not even glancing in our direction. From the look of them they might have been younger sons of one of Boston’s banking houses, though that bloodline was established when the acquisitions took place with cutlass rather than cheque books. Miss Cabot was walking ahead of us, with Maria a few yards behind. Helen and I had stopped for a minute to check we had securely packed the fresh fruit for our lunch. Suddenly my ears went up, as did Helen’s – and our tails fluffed out in sync as we spotted something very amiss.

    We had not forgotten those demonstrations back in January with that Russian gentleman showing how furs are snatched off the street. There was something awfully familiar about the setup ahead of us. Before I could do more than look that way, one of the canines had snapped his paw out of his sleeve like a magician with card tricks – but suddenly he had a chloroform pad that he clapped over Miss Cabot’s muzzle while his colleague hooked her hooves from under her!

    What happened next was something of a blur. Miss Cabot arched her back, falling away faster than anyone expected, to land on her shoulders – and let drive with both hooves like a steam-hammer up into the right-hand canine’s solar plexus. Maria was there a second later – and despite trying a judo move we recognised from class, the other canine went down. In three seconds she had him on his back with his hands pinned behind him, and her knee pressed against his trachea – ready and willing to drop her full weight down on him at an instant’s notice.

    Helen was shouting for help to a young police-fur terrier she saw at the edge of the park – one might have expected him to come running, but he stood there twirling his club as if watching a rounders game. Having a police-whistle of her own, Helen blew it deafeningly loudly as she came up to Maria and Miss Cabot.

    Although Miss Cabot is a far milder person than the doe we knew, she has forgotten nothing of our training and can be quite as rough as the situation requires. The canine with the chloroform pad would not be using it on anyone for awhile with both shoulders dislocated. She had pulled his sleeves back as an improvised strait-jacket by the time I came up to help – and noticing the police-fur was still standing there fifty yards away.

    Neither of our assailants were saying anything, despite one of them being in imminent danger of Maria dropping her full weight on his windpipe. Turning out their pockets I noticed the labels of the clothing had been removed, which is always a sinister sign; I relieved them of an automatic pistol apiece, finding absolutely nothing else on them, not even a bus ticket or set of keys.

    We were rather wondering what to do next, when a more decisive guardian of the Law turned up – a grizzled, somewhat stout boar with a Sergeant’s uniform and an inherited Irish accent. He demanded exactly what was going on, with pistol drawn – luckily two passers-by had seen it all and could tell him without being suspected of their own involvement. He yelled furiously at the watching police-fur who at last came over, looking with shock at the two canines on the ground. Addressing him as Junior Patrolman Krupke, the Sergeant was… most unhappy with him. I think the paint on the park benches somewhat blistered at what he said.

    Oh dear. According to Junior Patrolman Krupke, he was on patrol when our two attackers introduced themselves as G-men, showing them their badges and warrants (I had found no such things on them). Mightily impressing him, they “requested” that he stand out of the way while they took a notorious gangster in for questioning. Seeing us rather wipe the floor with them must have been rather a shock, and having been asked to stay well clear no matter what happened, he could not even go to help them.

    By this time some more of Boston’s uniformed finest had arrived, and under the direction of Sergeant O’Hanlan took our statements and handcuffed our still mute assailants to “take ‘em downtown and sweat ‘em.” Tipping his hat to us, he apologised on behalf of the City of Boston and assured us the full weight of the law would come down on the two canines – emphasising it as he tapped his billy-club. As they left, I could hear him in low tones promising the unfortunate Junior Patrolman that he was bound for the backstreet beats of Gnu York on the first transfer out, and prophesying he would still be out in the rain pounding the beat in twenty years time – providing “some hood doesn’t ventilate ya first”. I hope we have not spoiled that young terrier’s helpful disposition.

    All this time I felt like an aircraft lit up by a searchlight – someone was definitely watching us, but there must be thousands of people around within binocular range. On an empty moorland Helen and I could track them down like artillery sound-ranging an enemy battery, but in the middle of a city we only know someone is taking an unhealthy interest in us. Someone with more talents than walk-past snatches with chloroform.

    Whatever else happens, one has to eat. We had our luncheon on the spot, before the fruit and sandwiches were squashed with any more unarmed combat. At the end of it, Miss Cabot produced from her sleeve a pair of FBI badges that she had palmed before any of us noticed – without those, I expect those G-men are in for a bad afternoon falling downstairs on the way to the cells. This will not endear us to the rest of their organisation, I fear. Still, if they have a warrant they really think would stick, it would have been us being marched off by Sergeant O’Hanlan and his patrol with full official support. Someone watching us is presumably reporting to whoever is in charge right now.

    A quick “Chinese Parliament” followed on the park bench as we talked over our next step. Maria was all for cutting our stay short, now we have the maps for the rest of the coast, and heading straight out. I can see her point, but argued we always knew this was a risk and running now would cut Miss Cabot off from her new family and her most promising future. Miss Cabot agreed – pointing out that this is not Vostok, and even federal agencies need to have proof before they can act. Once in Mr Hoover’s paws, she is sure he would be able to “find” some proof. It is lucky the local police were there to assist; from what Molly used to tell me, they resent having anyone Federal telling them what to do in their own city and relations are somewhat strained at times.

    Helen thinks the two who tried to snatch us might have been a test – G-men do not usually go out like that, without backup. Mr Hoover could surely have spared another half dozen Agents to make sure of the job, if he really wants Molly Procyk that badly. Had they managed to bring her in that would have been “so much gravy” as she quaintly put it.

    Back to the Cabot household, not disturbing Miss Cabot’s grandmother with news of our encounter. We told her we had been shopping, seeing the sights and had taken some healthy exercise – all of which are exactly true. There was a letter awaiting us, air-mail from Spontoon, which was far more disturbing. We had given Saimmi our address and probable arrival time here, but never expected to hear from her.

    Dear Diary: it is an awful coincidence that our troubles today were aimed at Molly Procyk, the doe who no longer exists – our friend was destroyed in Kuo Han, her very being wiped out like a blanked slate that the Dark Priestesses re-wrote with the Miss Cabot we have today. I took no pleasure in taking vengeance, only making very sure that Dark Priestess would not do it, or anything else, ever again – and not two stones of that temple were left standing together. We mourned Molly, but she is gone. Nothing of what made her Molly survived Kuo Han.

    At least, that is what we thought. It is all we could have thought. Saimmi’s letter floored us; she tells a story we could not have believed from anyone else. More than a year ago, when Molly and I caught that awful Pacific Marsh Typhus and nearly died of it, we were nursed by the Priestess Oharu. It was long before I learned that, as Oharu loved Molly and Molly hated her for it. In our illness, Oharu used all her powers to take something like a snapshot of the doe’s spirit – fearing that if she died, she would have nothing left of her love. This would have been no use without a body – and the doe’s body already had Miss Cabot in it, like a transplanted plant putting out new roots in it. Oharu has told us she is totally opposed to killing – that is one reason I suppose why Saimmi re-introduced Warrior Priestesses.

    We all remember that snow leopard girl who was rescued from Captain Granite’s ship – she was presumably Chinese by her species, but after what had been done to her, there was nothing but a feral animal there. Molly called her Megan, in want of any other name, and the last time I saw her she had settled in as a resident “jungle girl” being looked after by the Spontoonies on Main Island.

    There the matter might have rested. But Saimmi had “read the fires” for her and seen that her body could not survive for long like that. She had an empty body, and the Priestess Oharu had an image of Molly’s personality like a pressing of a key mirrored in wax ready for casting. They needed Miss Cabot’s memory and everything else to copy – and before we left Spontoon, that was done.

    This, Saimmi says, has never been done before – and just as many attempts to fly across the Atlantic ended in tragedy, it was too much to hope that everything would go to plan first time. Putting a doe spirit into a leopard body is like trying to swap unrelated aircraft engines and hoping all the fittings and the pipework somehow line up – with the best engineers in the world improvising the connections, they will not. To make it worse (from Molly’s point of view) the snow leopard body had already had her… preferences changed by Captain Granite, and made permanent. That was Molly’s ultimate nightmare, that she had been a night or two away from it happening to her.

    Saimmi tells us that the good news is, Molly Procyk is alive again, with her skills and memories, and a new face that the G-men will never recognise. The bad news is – the shock was too much for her mind to withstand. Waking up in a new body – and in particular in that body – drove her violently insane. Saimmi says she would have taken less shock if the body had been male, though she believes the transfer would have been even more difficult than it was, to a brain different in both sex and species. Molly has stolen an aircraft and left Spontoon, and is somewhere out in the world.

    We put down the letter and nobody said anything for ten minutes. Miss Cabot shrugged, and quietly pointed out it was just one more fur who was after her. Whatever Mr Hoover has on his charge sheets, I doubt it includes the theft of a living body from its rightful owner.

    (Later) At supper, Mrs Cabot noticed we seemed suddenly rather pensive, and asked if there was any bad news in the letter. Her granddaughter took some time to reply – and her answer, that it was unexpected news we all needed to think on, was (I thought) very well put.

    Tomorrow night, Mrs Cabot says, there is a social gathering with her neighbours, which we are all invited to. She wants to introduce her granddaughter to her friends and relations – which is all very right and proper. One hopes there are no G-men on the guest list!